After nine relocations since its first home in 1924, the Art Gallery of Alberta gets an ultra-modern building to call its own. In 2005, the gallery launched an international competition that challenged designers to design its new building.

Five years of radical reconstruction, 5,000 custom-made pieces of steel weighing 800 tons and $88 million later, the Art Gallery of Alberta opened its doors to a mixed reception.

Some have lauded the architecture as a modern-day marvel, while others say the new gallery is worse than the building it replaced. 


Architect Randall Stout, a protege of Frank Gehry, explains his unique plan through a simple 
fact of neuroscience: the human brain reacts very differently to something never witnessed before.

Here’s what’s not to miss during your first look of the Art Gallery of Alberta:

The Art of Warner Bros. Cartoons

During the golden age of animation, the Warner Bros. cartoons department gave 
us bunnies, pigs and marsupials until it was shuttered in the 1960s. Experience the studio’s rise and fall through a chronological exhibition of 165 drawings, original celluloids and objets d’art used for bringing those dysfunctional, loveable characters to life (Galleries E and F; starting June 19).

Piranesi’s Prisons

Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s 260-year-old etchings of labyrinthine prisons are so detailed, it’s hard to believe they’re etched in copper and completely imagined. The 16 works from the second edition of Carceri d’invenzione (The Imaginary Prisons) are marvellous by themselves, but the gallery also features five initial impressions highlighting how drastically Piranesi reworked them Gallery A; starting June 19).

Play on Architecture!

Here’s where children can explore their inner architects. After sketching their own blueprints on knee-high drafting tables, kids can build child-sized versions of their designs out of green and blue sponge blocks (Gallery B).

Timeland

Last August, guest curator Richard Rhodes, editor of Canadian Art Magazine, mulled through 22 provincial galleries for the work of Alberta’s best established and emerging artists. For the 2010 Alberta Biennial of Contemporary Art, he presents his finds: a trove of paintings, sculptures, performance art and installation pieces demonstrating the rapid changes in the province’s geography, ecology and zeitgeist (Galleries H and I).

Singhmar Centre for Art Education

Signs your toddler might be the next Picasso: an inclination to stick pencils through paper instead of up nostrils, and the utter rejection of visual symmetry. Sound familiar? Then enrol your tot in this mini-college, complete with weekly gallery tours, art classes and workshops. And regular drop-in classes for teens and adults mean it’s never too late to disappoint your parents by going to art school.

    ZINC

This restaurant draws its name from the metal panelling of the AGA’s ceilings and walls. The colour and rectangular furniture of the interior was inspired by the periodic table of elements. But chef David Omar’s muse? Fresh Alberta ingredients. For a more casual meal, check out the Terrace Café and enjoy a grand view of downtown Edmonton. 

VIDEO

 Check out what the AGA has to offer, and explore Randall Stout's architectural wonder, right in the comfort of your own home!